Posted
by
kdawsonon Wednesday October 03, 2007 @07:58AM
from the joining-the-party dept.

mikepotter writes "Adobe announced Flex Builder Linux Alpha at the Adobe MAX conference today. This is a native Linux port of the Flex Builder IDE (based on Eclipse) for building rich Internet applications. 'Flex Builder Linux is a plugin-only version of the Flex Builder that you can use to build Flex applications on Linux. We wanted to get an early release out with the base Flex Builder features so you could begin to provide us with your feedback and let us know your priorities for additional features.'"

It's an IDE for building apps with Adobe Flex. It was quite apparently to me, even though I've never even considered using Flex. If you don't know what Adobe Flex is, and don't care enough to look it up, why did you bother with the article?

"Adobe® Flex 3 is a cross platform, open source framework for creating rich Internet applications that run identically in all major browsers and operating systems."

The flex part is just the interactive messaging between the proprietary flash client application and whatever you are running on the server to feed it with data. It is analogous to what you might do with AJAX, except the major browsers still don't support the open source equivalent of flash animations which is SVG animation. There is nothing open source about the actual applications that are running under the proprietary flash player browser plugin. Flash is still as closed and proprietary a format as ev

To quote the ubiquitous 'pedia [wikipedia.org], Flex is "a software development kit and an IDE for a group of technologies initially released in March of 2004 by Macromedia to support the development and deployment of cross platform, rich Internet applications based on their proprietary Macromedia Flash platform.".

Look at Flex as a way for programmers to make Flash applications. The Flash Animator thing (or whatever it was called) is good for Designers and Animators, but hard to work in if you're a traditional programmer.

As such this is a plugin for the Eclipse IDE to maek Flash applications.

I had a Flex 2 training last year (paid for by my company) and it was quite fun and nifty. That's pretty much how the trainer introduced Flex to us. I've got a pretty associative memory, and if someone mentions Flex, this definition pops up.

Their pricing model is sort of similar to what MS is doing with.NET. You can actually get a command-line compiler and build flex apps for free, just like you can compile to.net bytecode for free. What Adobe charges $500 for is the IDE (there is a standalone that's based on Eclipse and an Eclipse plugin). So what you're really paying for is code introspection, code behind, a debugger, and a design view (it seems that the design view doesn't work in the linux version).There's also an educational version

Adobe has done a nice job of releasing specs and porting software to the GNU/Linux world but they do not believe in software freedom. You can legitimately complain that their releases are late, non free and patent encumbered. The lack of freedom is most evident in their readers, which won't let you cut and paste if the author foolishly wishes to raise themselves above the already insane restrictions of copyright law. Until they liberate their code and repudiate software patents they should not pretend to

I'm sorry, I'm not getting this. Can you explain how you can "legitimately" complain about something Adobe does or doesn't do?

Sure, I can explain free software to you. At the very least, Adobe is forcing you to duplicate their work if you want to co-operate with them or their users. Can you tell me why they would want to do that? Can you then explain how a company that operates that way would not be tempted to introduce spurious features and make other changes that intentionally waste their customer's e

If I understand what Flex is, its an alternative to Flash? If so why wouldn't the open source community develop their own app? Many people use and like Flash in the Windows world, it would certainly help Linux if it had an alternative.

While Flex is an alternative way of creating Flash content, like the Flash ide it still only publishes swf files (Flash 9 movies.)It is incredibly powerful tho and if you've had anything to do with creating Java then its quite easy to get into.

Anyhow, If you're going to shell out for Flex then my advice is to get the standalone version, as the eclipse plugin caused real problems and almost fouled my existing Eclipse setup - naughty.

Also, set aside a good few hours to get svn working properly with it (subcli

No, I'm afraid it's simply a system to write Flash in a different way.

I'm also afraid that the easy availability of Flash for Linux now makes alternatives even harder for people to justify working on. It's a -ton- of work to create an equivalent system, and to do better is even harder. Even OpenLaszlo compiles to Flash as it's main method, with the DHTML4 'compile' method still not ready for use.

Flex 3 will be open source. Flex 2 was not, but this is version 3, and it will include the SDK and IDE and whatever else falls under the term "Flex". I actually just downloaded it for Eclipse on Windows the other day, and I plan to do so on my Linux box as soon as I get home. Check out this page and the FAQ further down for more answers.

Wow. I just realized from elsewhere on this thread that the Eclipse plugin requires a serial number after 30 days. I tried it and confirmed. It looks like they will charge for the IDE. That's a little disappointing, but I guess they have to make their money somehow.

IMHO, it's more that Microsoft has been shoving some rather pointy, sharp objects toward Adobe's infant children (shades of Netscape), and that Adobe doesn't like it much. Solution: help people leave Microsoft.

Well on a more basic level, this is tied to the back-end servers more than client machines, and while this isn't the year of "Linux on the Desktop", there's no way you can safely ignore Linux servers, or the developers who use them.

to all you bastards that modded my parent post a troll-- stating that linux adoption is inevitable is a *fact*. Linux usage has been increasing almost exponentially. Just because you don't like what is happening doesn't mean it isn't happening. While I'm at it-- OSX usage is also increasing. Over 17% of ALL new notebooks sold are made by Apple. Vista is a dead horse in the market right now.

I miss refactoring, reformatting and other functionality that most other eclipse builders offer. The UI designer is excellent though and miles better than anything I've seen for Java. Slightly tangential but the web service support in Flex is HORRIBLE. They need a wizard that generates proper type checked stubs from the wsdl rather than the dynamic binding crap they have at the moment.

Adobe Flex is an compelling platform- As I understand, it's Adobe's attempt to bring desktop programming to Flash, using an Eclipse plugin and compiling either to standalone SWFs, or to files generated on the fly with your data.

It's got a few interesting widgets[1], and it's starting to be adopted in more places such as Yahoo's Maps application.

Also worth looking into is OpenLaszlo (http://www.openlaszlo.org/) which is written in a standardized XML language, and compiles to both SWF or DHTML. I've found that there aren't as many people in the community, and documentation is a bit lacking, but being able to compile to multiple runtimes is nice, as is the understanding that if Adobe changes their mind, you can always compile to Silverlight or some other destination down the road.

Both can call Java backends fairly easily, and both are OSS, although OpenLaszlo is far more open.

Also worth investigating is Haxe (Haxe.org), which generates Flash files, and uses it's own custom programming language for both the client and the server.

I just took a look as OpenLaszlo again (it's been a while) and it looks nice. Maybe a bit shakey, though... Their 'introduction' page/app didn't load properly on linux (Opera) the first time, and UI ended up looking at just a 'wait' clock. Reloading brought it up.The calendar demo doesn't work well either, as I've been completely unable to add an event (can't type, looks like there are missing controls) under Opera and Firefox, even if I try to reload it.

I disagree. I wouldn't use Flex Data Services even if they were free OSS. Flex has excellent built in support for using a REST backend. By building on top of FDS you are building yourself a middle tier that you can't reuse. By using REST you have a middle tier you can use with other technologies. If you are using Java, kick FDS to the curb and learn to build REST services using Castor or XFire.

I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.You're right that doing middleware through Xfire is perfectly viable.. It didn't seem very supported when we last looked into it, though, which is one of the reasons I was nervous. I do see Adobe's posted http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flexjava.html [adobe.com] though, which is a good first step.

Are you working with Flex->Xfire? How well does it work? Can you point me to any good resources?I've been frustrated with the small team size be

I'm sorry, I got my X(insert natual element here) projects confused. I meant XStream http://xstream.codehaus.org/ [codehaus.org] not XFire. I use Castor, I just know others use XStream for the same thing I use Castor for.

One thing I forgot to mention, if I started a project fresh today, I would seriously consider enunciate http://enunciate.codehaus.org/ [codehaus.org] or Axis2. Both seem to be a good way to easily produce a full REST stack (to fully handle get, post, put, and delete). I haven't had the chance to try either, but it's on my todo list.

If they are using eclipse then why do they ship a binary installer? Why not use the Eclipse feature installation system or even a archive that contains the feature/plugin stuff. It's not that difficult. Nobody cares for flashy installers.

The reason is because Flex Builder is not free. You need to enter a serial # to use it after 30 days. The SDK *is* free, and you can do everything using just Vim and the Flex compiler, but as one who has done Flex development, that's like using ImageMagick at the command line instead of Gimp; sure you can do it, but it's not particularly easy.

This wouldn't stop them. The Flex Builder installer doesn't ask for your serial #. I think more it is more likely because the installer asks if you want to install the plugin into an existing Eclipse / WebSphere / whatever install, or install the standalone FlexBuilder IDE (also based on Eclipse). The standalone version appears to be more stable and is installed with its own JVM. You don't get asked for your serial # until you create a Flex project.

This is great. As more and more companies move to Linux with non-free licenses it will prove that the Linux platform can support non-free commercial software. I imagine many buy into Microsoft's FUD that everything on Linux has to be free, so this will help dissuade that. Hopefully.

IANAL, but the end user license agreements for the Adobe AIR SDK and Flex 3 SDK contain clauses that are rather frightening, which puts a serious crimp on how useful an IDE for those SDKs are.

From the Adobe AIR SDK EULA:

4. Development Restrictions. You will not use the SDK Components to create, develop or use any program, software or service that (a) contains any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfe

Yes, but most I've read tend to have restrictions that are solely there to protect the intellectual property of the software maker. So you get terms that prevent reverse engineering and whatnot. Those typically don't bother me, as I have no intention of violating their intellectual property rights. Once you get to the level where clauses creep in that, say, prevent publishing performance test results, I try to avoid using that technology. Adobe's clauses I quoted above are just plain brazen.

mostly consists of annoying as hell boxes that say "You don't have the latest Flash, click here to download."

To which I usually back up to TEXT ONLY, er Non-Rich Google and choose another site. Now thats 'rich'.

I HAVE 2 versions of Flash installed already.Besides the worst websites use flash, I mean even after I get flash, the site is still busy, ugly, and usually contains less info than a text cache at google anyway.

Too bad you are just coming out as a troll saying "X sucks because I saw it here and here and it was annoying blah blah". Flash is not suited for all types of websites but luckily that thing was understood years ago by anyone working on the "web thingy".

If you actually pull your head out of the sand then you will see that people have actually started making good content using flash and the fugly era of shiny flash intros for websites is dead for the most part. Maybe you may want to take a look at Yahoo! [yahoo.com]

Hmm I guess you don't have the flash plugin installed (or atleast not the flash player 9, which is needed to display flex and the new flash content). It should be easily installed on visiting the page if you are on the windows platform (can't say what is the state of compatibility of the newer flash players with Linux as I have been away from it for a while). If flash player 9 has no support for linux yet then I agree that there is a problem with those websites in the sense that those features can not be do

I agree with your point, and just want to say that Flex is an alternative to a client-server app written in Java or.Net or whatever. It isn't an alternative to a website.If you want a website and some basic interaction with the user, then use HTML and a server-side language.

But if for some reason you need to let a user do a lot of very complex data manipulation, then doing it client-side makes more sense, and in that situation, HTML and javascript has *always* been the *wrong* answer. It has always been

Available on 99% of machines, 93% on flash 9. (http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html). It's not a standard, but in all practicality is. Sure something open source and standards based would be preferred. However, I feel better about developing for flash than I do for ActiveX

2. Not easily indexed by search engines

True, but indexing may not be important to you, based on what kind of internet application you are developing.

3. Does not work consistently in all browsers

It's seems more consistent than HTML... and it's a vendor that is at least seeking

That list is like saying "motorcycles aren't standard cars."
Can you write animated games or play movies in only HTML?
Are browsers bug free and consistent?
Flash has its uses, such as delivering a consistent experience. Flex is not intended to replace HTML, but is intended for doing things that are impractical or inefficient in HTML.
I could do with less ads.

So I can assume that this application generates 100% valid HTML and XHTML constructs, with their own proprietary Flash being an additional extension to that baseline, riiiiiight?

Flex is not intended for writing average websites; it is a tool for writing rich web applications. If you've ever tried to build an RIA like Yahoo Mail in traditional DHTML, I think you can appreciate that there is more than a little room for improvement. That's where Flex comes in -- for this breed of application, it is simply more practical than the alternatives.

Not going to get into a religious debate here, but I think some of your criticisms of Flash as a platform are un

All versions of the Flash player are fully backwards-compatible with all previous versions. I think this is broken occasionally on security grounds, but in general a ton of work goes into compatibility. The next release of Flash is a lot less likely to break your existing content than the next release of IE.

I've heard of IE, isn't that the browser that runs on that legacy platform, Microsoft Windows?

All kidding aside, until it can run natively on 32-bit and 64-bit Linux, with native 32-bit and 64-bit

TIBCO GI is for building Ajax apps (not movies). You can always put a movie into a GI app since GI's basic building block can contain any HTML. On the flip side... try putting native HTML into a flash movie (no can do easily). The point of GI the rapid development of software-style web apps atop HTTP services. It's optimial for that. If that what you want to do, then it's a great tool for the job. If you want to create a movie, I'd certinly suggest something that generates Flash.

How is that different/better than, say, Dojo? Or Google Web Toolkit, or Yahoo UI Library?

The IDE. And the set of widgets is (imnsho) more consistent and more complete. Accordians,
fades, and round corners are swell and all, but grids, trees, text, and forms is where the work
gets done. I've tried the kits you mentioned, plus a couple others (jQuery, Ext),
and then tried Aptana (ugh, an Eclipse based tool for building browser apps ?)
but once I started using GI, I was hooked. Just run it in a browser, a

FWIW-- InfoWorld Labs came to the same conclusion... awarding TIBCO GI "best open source Ajax toolkit" over dojo, GWT, YUI, and all others. (http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/2007/09/116-best_of_open_so-4.html)
Upsides of TIBCO GI: Gobs of smart Ajax components and visual rapid dev tools for them! Fast to build Ajax apps...usually business productivity type apps. (Was first released in 2001! Yes 2001 before Mozilla was even a word, less RIA or Ajax). Loads of documentation and resources -- all free unde

Boycott the tools creating files in proprietary formats, until Adobe either releases the source code for the player(s), or begins producing binary players for all platforms. Win/i386, MacOS/i386 and Linux/i386 is not enough...

It is one thing for them to want to make money off the authoring tools. But keeping the player closed serves no good purpose to anyone (not even Adobe) and inconveniences many thousands.

Lately Adobe has been labeling many of their products, especially frameworks related to web development as "open source" when in reality they open source a small part of it and leave the critical portions under an extremely restrictive proprietary license.

As I understand it they have claimed they will open source parts of the flex sdk, but the flex ide, and the flash runtime plugins will still remain under the same old proprietary license, this is not acceptable. It would be a step backwards if in a few years a significant portion of content on the internet was trapped in proprietary binaries that are difficult to index and likely impossible for many to use a few years down the road. Adobe releases some specs for flash but they are released under terms saying that if you read the specs you are forbidden from writing anything capable of working with flash files. This is almost worse than nothing because even if you create a flash plugin completely independently or with the use of clean room techniques Adobe has the option of claiming that you must have looked at their specs and take you to court in an attempt to kill your project. Also there are many restrictions on the use of the plugin itself, for example you can't use it in many commercial applications such as a flash driven kiosk without first paying Adobe again.

How many years did Linux languish with outdated and extremely buggy versions of the flash plugins? We may have a more or less up to date version of the plugin now but there is no guarantee it will stay that way, a great deal of internet content is trapped in a format that we can only view as long as Adobe feels like letting us, and the architecture support is still pathetic, how is it there is still no native x86-64 support? This should have been done two years ago, to make no mention of the lack of flash9 support on the smaller architectures such as powerpc which effectively locks ps3 users out of browsing most modern flash based websites.

Adobe seems like a big heavy software company that still operates primarily in a 1980's mentality, trying to make the transition to something more modern and web-centric , and they are trying to get some of the glow of open standards and open source to rub off on them, the problem is that they seem to be faking much of it. They talk about openness to get you interested, then you dig into it and find out that there are always critical components they are still keeping under lock and key. I am no fan of flash but it does have its uses, I keep hoping that pressure from Microsoft's silverlight will cause Adobe to really open up the flash spec and allow 3rd parties to create their own implementations of the flash ide and flash runtimes, as pressure from Microsoft's half-assed pdf alternative caused Adobe to release pdf as an iso standard. Though I see no sign of this happening as Adobe still seems to believe they can have their cake and eat it too.

Lately Adobe has been labeling many of their products, especially frameworks related to web development as "open source" when in reality they open source a small part of it and leave the critical portions under an extremely restrictive proprietary license.
As I understand it they have claimed they will open source parts of the flex sdk...

The push to support Linux is real. Flash and Flex are intended to be a first-class software development platform, and Adobe realizes that many developers prefer to use Linux.

proprietary binaries that are difficult to index and likely impossible for many to use a few years down the road

Flash has been around for 10 years, and backwards compatibility is so good that most of the 10-year-old content from the early versions still runs in the newest one.

if you create a flash plugin completely independently or with the use of clean room techniques Adobe has the option of claiming that you must have looked at their specs and take you to court in an attempt to kill your project.

This is just an aside, but I think you're being silly. Any company can sue a c

To all those asking what this will cost... the real cost of working with Flex comes from purchasing licenses for FDS - the Flash Data Services backend. The IDE cost for me (in the few hundreds for Windows) was almost negligible compared to the FDS cost (in the several thousands). OpenLaszlo is a good alternative, but the major piece is lacks is support for messaging. That's what drove me to shell out major bucks for Flex - my requirements just couldn't do without messaging.

Flex Data Services isn't required to use Flex. You can talk to any standard web service using all your favorite acronyms like SOAP, WSDL, REST, CRUD, etc... If you're happy with what you have and don't feel the need for FDS, then it's completely free.

O.K. this is very hyperthetical - what if the 'flash system' became so widespread on the internet that *every* website needed it to function - You would have a virtual monopoly sitting right inside your system with no alternative!!??

That pretty much already exists for YouTube, unless someone's found a way to make it go into iPhone mode on a PC browser. But that only worked because Apple basically strongarmed them into providing mp4 files, instead of Flash.